IKEA and his founder Mr. Kamprad.

Wealth

He is one of the 17th richest people in the world.

Personality

He has fought against dyslexia and illness and still is charismatic and friendly.

Lifestyle

He ist best known for his modest lifestyle, for example he still washes plastic cups to recycle them.

Leadership style

He expresses the feelings of togetherness physically.His leadership style is informal and possess a lack of hierarchy. Kamprad hates short term decissions.

Termination gratuity

Is it ethical for president Verzetnisch to claim termination gratuity?

The litigation between Mr. Verzetnisch and the trade union is the headline of every known newspaper in Austria and I am very interested at the results.
But I don’t answer the question because I am working in a company who belongs in former times the trade union. A further point is that the blog is online and so readable for everyone who as access to the World Wide Web. And if someone of my company finds my opinion about this topic, I can be sure that the blog and I will be the gossip number one of my company. Therefore, I hope you can understand that I don’t write down my opinions.

Ethical Orientation Questionnaire

Which is worse?

• hurting someone's feelings by telling the truth
• telling a lie and protecting their feelings
  

Comment:
I think it depends on the situation and how good you know the person. For the moment I don't have any clear answer.

Which is the worse mistake?

• to make exceptions too freely
• to apply rules too rididly
  

Comment:
For me the second point is worse because I don't like rules.

Which is it worse to be?

• unmerciful
• unfair
  

Comment:
Both points of the numeration are very very bad for me and this is the reson why I don't make a decision.

Which is worse?

• stealing something valuable from someone for no good reason
• breaking a promise to a friend for no good reason
  

Comment:
It is very hard for me do make a decision but after careful consideration I take point number one. Further I believe that a good friend will forgive me if I make this mistake.

Which is better to be?

• just and fair
• sympathetic and feeling
  

Comment:
When I was young the first point was very important for me but now I believe the second one is better.

Which is worse?

• not helping someone in trouble
• being unfair to someone by playing favourites
  

Comment:
From the moral point of few I think the first one is the worse one.

In making a decision you rely more on

• hard facts
• personal feelings and intuition
  

Comment:
I always believe more in personal feelings and intuition. Because the hard facts are done by people and they could also do a mistake.

Your boss orders you to do something that will hurt someone. If you carry out the order, have you actually done anything wrong?

• Yes
• No
  

Comment:
Yes it is totally wrong to hurt someone. And till this day I cannot understand that someone can do that. But the history and the daily notices show us that it happens often.

Which is more important in determining whether an action is right or wrong?

• whether anyone actually gets hurt
• whether a rule, law, commandment, or moral principle is broken
  

Comment:
For me it is totally clearly to hurt someone is wrong. Do save the life and the health of other people is the first duty of us.

First english lesson after summer break

Hallo to all!


This is my first posting after a long time and after my very short holiday. I spent my holiday in Spain on the Costa Calida. The place where I lived the two and a half weeks is called La Manga del Mar Menor. It's very nice there, because there are two seas, on is called the Mediterranean sea and the other one is called Mar Menor. I went there with the plane. I flew from Vienna over Hannover to Alicante. On the airport I rented a car and went hundred kilometer along the cost to La Manga.

During the two and a half week I made a lot of short trips through the province Murcia. I also went fishing, but I caught only two small fish. The holidays past very quickly and so I am now back in Vienna.

• vocabularies from the unit 11

This are my results and translations:

accountant --> Buchhalter
car sales execuitve -- > Autoverkäufer
civil servant --> Beamter
estate agent --> Immobilienhändler
thrustworthy --> vertrauenswürdig, zuverlässig
a slush fund --> Schmiergeldkasse,…
insider trading --> Insider-Geschäft
whistleblower --> Skandalaufdecker

a bribe

fraud --> Betrug; Schwindel;…
law-abiding --> gesetzestreu
industrial espionage --> Wirtschaftsspion
a fraudster --> Betrüger
a bonus --> Prämie
secrecy --> Geheimnisvoll; Geheimhaltung
a cover up --> Verschleierung; Vertuschung
compensation --> Abfindung, Abgeltung
disclosure -->Offenlegung;Angabepflicht; Freigabe,…
a con artist --> Trickbetrüger
a commission -->Vermittlungsgebühr; Kommision,…
integrity --> Anstand; Integrität
controversial --> strittig; umstritten
responsibility --> Haftung, Pflicht, Zuständigkeit
corruption --> Korruption
regulation --> Regelung
transparency --> Transparenz
peer pressure --> Gruppenzwang
threats --> Drohungen
standard of living

court assigned lawyer --> gerichtlich zugewiesener Anwalt
swept under the carpet --> etwas unter den Teppich kehren

starting as an apprentice --> beginnen als Lehrling

litigation --> to be involved in a court case
to sue for money --> Geld von jemanden einklagen

Reflexion 26/05/2007

Today Julia teached us English. She was really very exerted to teach us English.

Roland made a presentation about the "IF-Clauses".
It was a interesting presentation and I enjoyed it very.
The presentation was very informativ and had a touch of a cabaret.

I learned following rules, if I want to use "If-Clauses":

Type 1: Used when expected outcome is very likely

• if + simple present + .... will ....

Type 2: Used when outcome is less likely or imaginary

• if + simple past + .... would + infinitive ....

After the presentation we made a littel test about "If-Clauses".

Cheers

Toni

reflexion



Today Martin explain us the use and the sense of a concordancer.
He showed us a lot of examples for using the concordander.

Further we got following homework:
Page 85 A and B (Market Leader)

reflexion 12/05/2007

Today our topic was Employment.
We do the excersice A on Page 68. We had to rank some words.
My ranking: contacts and connections, appearance, experience, qualifications, references.

The other words were:

• hobbies
• sex
• intelligence
• marital status
• personality
• age
• astrological sign
• handwriting
• blood group
• sickness record
• family background

Afterwards we discuss about job, boss, colleague,....

After our break Christan hold a presentation. The topic of the presentation was should.

He explained us what we had to consider, if we are using the word "should".

Countries, Nationalities & Language

Articles:

• most of country names with "THE"
• some have articles
  (The United States, The UK)
• (The) Lebanon, (The) Gambia

Adjectives

• -ish: British, Danish, Irish
• -(i)an: American, Korean, Canadian
• -ese: Chinese, Japanese
• -i: Pakistani, Iraqi
• -ic: Arabic, Islandic
• Dutch, Greek, Swiss, Thai, Cyprist

At first we made brainstorming about our last lesson.
It was horrible because I did not remeber any topic only
that I made a presentation about get.

Afterwards Martin hold a presentation about HAVE TO and MUST.

Here the results of his presentation:

Reflexion

Last English lesson I made a presentation about the word 'get' and possible word combinations with get. The presentation took place after our break. All the time I was very nervous. During the presentation I had the feeling that I was talking in a language that sounded like English but for me it only sounded strange. After finishing I was very pleased about the positive reaction for my presentation.

Presentation GET

• frequently used in spoken English
  has a lot of different meanings:
  ., basic
  ., specifc
  ., phrasal verbs
  ., common expressions
  

Basic meanings:
• receive, obtain, buy something
to get a newspaper / to get a letter / to get top marks / Go to the store to get the book.
• change position
move / be moved / How are you getting home tonight?
• change state
become or make / We are getting old but not wiser.



Specific meanings:
• get dinner
to prepare dinner
Saturday I‘ll get dinner.
• get it
to understand
Did you get it?
• get someone
to annoy
His laziness really gets me sometimes.
• get to know
to become acquainted
I get to know him, he is interesting.

Phrasal verbs based on get:
• get at
reach / find / He will get at the right place.
• get away with
do wrong without being caught
He got away with all the money.
• get behind
fail to do something by a certain time
He got behind with his work.

• get by
manage (financially)
We get by because we don‘t buy a lot.
• get down
depress / The message is getting him down.
• get down to
begin to give some serious attention to
Let us get down to the topics.

• get on
manage / We‘ll get it on!
• get on
advance, develope
He is getting on very well.
• get out of
avoid a responsability
He got out of his duty.
• get over
recover from
She has got over her illness.

• get round
spread / The news got round quickly.
• get through
come to a successful end
We got through the project.
• get through
use up all of / We got through the biscuits.
• get up to
to do (especially something bad)
What are the children getting up to do?
They are so quiet.

Common expressions based on get:
• get out of bed on the wrong side
be in a bad mood
Did you get out of bed on the wrong side? You are in such a bad mood.
• get off to a good / bad start
started well / badly
The concert got off to a good start with one of his best songs.

• get-together
informal meeting / party
The get-together will start at five.
• got rid of
threw away / destroyed
He got rid of all his belongings.

• getting you down
bringing you down
Problems are always getting him down.

• get on well
do well with
Jogging in the morning will help you get on
well at work.
• get my own back
take my revenge
I‘ll get my own back soon.

Health

Some words and phrases from our last brainstorming:

headache Kopfschmerzen
stomachache Bauchschmerzen
diarrhea Durchfall
vomitting Erbrechen
a temperature Fieber
an cold Erkältung
shaking grate Schüttelfrost
mouth felt strange

What are the symptoms?
I am breaking out in cold sweat
Are you on any kind of medication
I´am going to measure your blood pressure.
Can I measure your blood pressure.
Can I take your pulse.
Can I take your temperature.

pressure on my chest
Can´t breath properly.
Can´t get enough air.

pain in my arm
my arm is numb

Where is your headache located
affected by the weather wetterfühlig
a draught

Where is your headache

Some Idioms

We have hit a snag --> Wir sind auf Schwierigkeiten gestoßen.

We have to tighten our belts. --> Wir müssen den Gürtel enger schnallen

I´m snowed under at the moment. --> Im Moment bin ich mit Arbeit eingedeckt.